Those tears, those two tears that ran down her cheeks, signalled the arrival on the world stage, not just of a singer but of an artist, a woman whose whole life experience was funnelled into her songs.
We don’t know what or who Sinead O’Connor was thinking of when we watched the video of Nothing Compares 2 U, but we immediately recognised authenticity.
With her head almost completely shaved, her waif-like susceptibility found its flawless match in a song about heartbreak, and the world couldn’t take its eyes off her.
Over the years, that vulnerability alternated with fierce bravery, and both sides of Sinead O’Connor were equally mesmerising.
We mourned with her when she endured pain, and we cheered her on when misfortune came calling and met defiance when it expected surrender, and when her son Shane took his own life at just 17, in 2022, we cried when she cried and wanted to embrace her when she was at her most broken.
It’s a measure of the special affection in which she was held that her death yesterday struck such a chord. It felt like a whole world had gone with her, a world of her own making and one in which her integrity was the only compass she followed.
There were many times she could have taken an easier path, but that would have been too easy. Honesty wasn’t something she acquired, it was built into the very fabric of her being, and she couldn’t ignore it, even if she wanted to.
When she ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in the United States in 1992, and in protest at the first Gulf War, refused to play a festival gig in New Jersey if the US national anthem preceded her appearance, she experienced naked hostility on a level unseen by many artists.
Frank Sinatra, who played the following night, said that he’d like to kick her in the ass, but Sinead, unapologetic as always, said that she couldn’t hit him back because he was like 78 years of age and she’d probably kill him.
Both incidents effectively ended her mass-market career across the Atlantic, but her creativity still thrived, and unapologetic and unbowed, she lived her life on her own terms, musically, romantically, and religiously.
There were times it was difficult to keep up. She married four times and had other significant relationships, and had four children, the first in 1987. She was ordained as a Tridentine priest of the Latin rite, Mother Mary Bernadette, but later converted to Islam.
It’s terribly sad that she’s died. She had the most amazing voice and she was way too young to die.
She was courageous and had incredible talent, and that must have been extremely difficult to live with. She was a tortured soul and now finally rests in peace.
Sinead O’Connor was a force to be reckoned with, but sadly the world hates such strong and powerful women, now she will rest in peace and fly high with her darling son Shane.
Her songs made us face the unpalatable truth, and she challenged the system. Stardom was not her God, and she was too genuine to fit in, and it’s distasteful that when this troubled woman was alive, the media were always less than kind towards her and now that she’s no longer with us, they’ve done a quick u-turn and are now showering praises on her. She lived by her own rules and there’s nothing wrong with that – perhaps some of us should take a leaf out of her book?
I must confess I never liked the song Nothing Compares 2 U, it was a song you could slit your throat to, but I’m guessing it had a lot of meaning to Sinead O’Connor at the time, and now hopefully she’s up there with God singing her little heart out. May your God go with you!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 